LOOKER EVERYMAN MAGAZINE INTERVIEW

Making its way from Wiesbaden, Germany to Bangkok. WEMOTO, which doesn´t have anything to do with motorbike as it seems from the name, was founded by a group of 3 friends, Patrick Lotz, Stefan Golz, and Gregor Garkisch in year 2003. Looker Magazine sat down with Gregor Garkisch to learn more about the brand.

WHAT WERE YOU GUYS DOING WHEN STARTING THE BRAND?

„At the moment I was 24. My goal was to do something by myself and not working as an employee. Then one of my best friends Patrick, who I was skating with since I was 8 years old, was into screen printing so I asked him if he wanted to screen print t-shirts for sale, and that´s how it started.”

HOW DID IT GOT?

“For the two of us, we had the ideas but we didn´t know much about the design, so we asked 7 artists to make the designs for us and we produced them out. And one of the artists was Stefan, he was really into it, he put a lot of afford to it and eventually, after a year, we asked him if he wanted to join the team and be the head designer of the brand.”

WHAT ARE THE CULTURES THAT INFLUENCE WEMOTO THE MOST?

“Back when starting the brand, we were really into skateboarding and designs. But that´s not only the influences. We take pieces and bits from everything around us, people we know, places we´ve been. Sometimes, these things inspire you and you don´t even realize it.”

WHO WEARS WEMOTO?

“In general, we make clothes we like to wear. Hahaha, We like t-shirts with deliberate graphics which are funny but still cool. Regarding outerwear, we are more into good cuts, quality materials and some nice color combinations. We are not too much seasonal trends as they come and go. Our aim is to make clothing you can wear in 5 years from now and still look fresh and not look like a clown who follows a long dead trend. So basically, we want to make fresh clothes that well-dressed guys and girls like to wear.”

YOU GUYS ARE PLAYING WITH WORDS AND QUOTES A LOT LIKE “BOYS DON`T CRY”, “I WILL SURVIVE”. WHAT´S THE IDEA BEHIND THESE?

“We just have fun making nice t-shirts. There´s so many things and words that we still want to use. Sometimes these things have deeper meaning when you see twice. We love to be controversial but still funny.”

SS 2017 COLLECTION

“First of all, each collection is built on the previous one. We improve our stuff and try to make it better each season. Sure, we always add many new styles and see how they work. Spring Summer 2017 (and all previous future) is a contemporary approach to ‘Streetwear’. We want to do quality clothing which stands the test of time but with a reasonable pricing.”

WHAT IS IT LIKE AT WEMOTO OFFICE?

“It has a really fun atmosphere at the office. There are 13 people at Wemoto office. And everyone works there, we know all of them before working. There´s no one handing in the application. We asked them to with us. So, it´s really democracy and there is no hierarchy at all. We also have a table tennis at the office.”

WHAT IS THE NEXT STEP OF WEMOTO?

“In recent years, we see a lot of potential in Wemoto clothing and working on getting even better in what we´re doing. On the one hand it means to develop things further and supply people with better and smarter products. On the other hand, we create scene related/cultural contents as well as to involve more people/brands we respect and cooperate with. We do not want to rush things and we are not into blowing it up too fast. Sure, we want to grow but we want to grow in a smart and organized way. If things grow too fast they are not lasting too long and we want to be here for the long run.”